INST 2609 - The Art of Film

Hours:4This course will study film as an art form from a variety of cultural, historical, and national and global perspectives. The course will introduce students to basic film terminology and techniques such as mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing, narrative, sound, and genre. Students will study film from a range of styles and time periods, including the silent era, classical Hollywood cinema, “indie” cinema, anime, or world cinema. Possible topics of the course could include a focus on film genres (such as film noir, the western, the gangster film, or the woman’s picture) or film directors (such as Alfred Hitchcock, Todd Haynes, Akira Kurosawa, or Ousmane Sembène). Course topics will be offered in a range of areas and may include courses on world cinema, masculinity in cinema, horror film and contemporary culture, or theories of documentary, for examples. The course will examine film from both a formal perspective and as an ideological construct in relation to gender, class, and globalization.